What we’ve learnt We started looking at “Who is God?” by seeing that we can end up believing all sorts of lies about God. These include that God is not love or that he could not love me, that God is weak, he lacks the power to act, that God is distant, unapproachable and so… Continue reading What have we learnt about God and from God?
Tag: pastoral theology
Learning to Enjoy God – An Alcoholic meets the good God
When we came to Methuselah, the alcoholic, we intuitively went to Ephesians 5:18: “Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Here we see that being filled with the Spirit is contrasted – not compared – with being drunk on wine. I think that one… Continue reading Learning to Enjoy God – An Alcoholic meets the good God
The doctrine of God and a marriage on the rocks
Now we return to Tom, Gladys and Ethel. Tom had been giving Ethel lifts to home group whilst his wife Gladys stayed at home. When we first met their situation, we talked about a gut instinct that things were wrong and that we weren’t getting to hear the whole story. Tom had admitted that his… Continue reading The doctrine of God and a marriage on the rocks
Love, holiness, relationships and rivalry
Remember Juliet? We met her at the coffee shop where she was looking longingly into the eyes of Romeo, her work colleague. In conversation, it comes out that When you talk with Juliet, she defends her relationship as follows. By the way, I’m not suggesting that she presents the following points in a neat, structured,… Continue reading Love, holiness, relationships and rivalry
Why does what we call God matter?
Throughout our look at who God is, we’ve kept coming back to the point that what we believe affects how we live. This means that when we talk about The Doctrine of the Trinity, belief that God is Sovereign or the question of Predestination, we’ve not just been engaging in an intellectual exercise. These beliefs… Continue reading Why does what we call God matter?
The goodness and greatness of God: Implications for spiritual warfare
If God is completely sovereign and knows all things, past present and future, then is spiritual warfare real? Or to put it the other way round, given that the Bible talks about spiritual warfare and given our experience in life of an ongoing struggle between good and evil, doesn’t this challenge our understanding of God’s… Continue reading The goodness and greatness of God: Implications for spiritual warfare
God’s Goodness and Greatness: Implications for prayer
Another response to God’s character should be a lively prayer life. In fact, this is part of worship. Prayer is an obvious response to God’s goodness. God is love and so prayer is about a relationship with him, knowing God and knowing that he loves to hear us. We can be confident that a good… Continue reading God’s Goodness and Greatness: Implications for prayer
God’s goodness and greatness: Implications for worship
Our first response to God’s goodness and greatness is worship. In fact, Calvin says that our first priority in life is to seek to be worshippers: “We should consider it the great end of our existence to be found numbered among the worshippers of God.”[1] We exist in a Christian culture where worship is often… Continue reading God’s goodness and greatness: Implications for worship
Relationships and the Trinity
Remember Juliet? We left her sitting in a coffee shop gazing into the eyes of Romeo. So, a few days later, you meet up with Juliet for coffee and you broach the subject: “So who’s the guy?” She tells you that they met at work, they really like each other and have been on one… Continue reading Relationships and the Trinity
The Trinity, Family and work
In our last post, we met Albert Hall. Albert is good at his job, but also working incredibly long hours. How does what he believes affect how he lives? Our aim here is not to go through every aspect of the pastoral situation. We may well come back and do that later in order to… Continue reading The Trinity, Family and work
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